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…. don’t remember we’re all-powerful, but instead (just for excitement), we think the dream is real and that we are limited? Just until we wake up. And wouldn’t we provoke entertaining stories and drama, just because we knew it wouldn’t be real? We would wake up?

And, listening to this, it sounded so reasonable. It didn’t seem far-fetched or completely impossible– in fact, it sounded exactly like us. We create stories and plays and movies– all for our entertainment and because we have the creative ability. It’s in our nature to ‘make-believe’. and if ‘it’ comprises us or we are ‘it’, doesn’t that mean it’s in ‘his’ nature?

To push the limits?Test ourselves?Create?Imagine?Play?Entertain?

But when does it end?

I know that I will be absorbed again, because everything goes back to whence it came, but do I have an ‘objective’ first? Do I have to ‘prove myself’ first? That’s ridiculous! If I am ‘it’ and ‘it’ is me, then I have already ‘proven’ myself by showing up. If I am ‘it’ and ‘it’ is me, then there’s nothing to prove. Unless I’m bored and as a part of my game I’ve assigned myself an objective to ‘spice things up.’

They’ve discovered that we’re like a hologram, a projection off of the all-consuming black hole. If we are just a projection of ‘it’ playing a game, then what’s the point of

— I was going to say of ‘playing’, but I remember. The point is for entertainment.

So then — what’s the point of being sad if it’s not real?

If this is a game (or ‘dream’), then there are ‘shortcuts’ or ‘cheats’. There always are.

But, if this is a game, it’s to enjoy. Not just to challenge, but also to revel in.

So, if I am ‘god’, or a manifestation of ‘me’, what would I want to do with this character? I mean, clearly I wanted this personality and this build, these parents, and then provided a range of outcomes for myself. — maybe in multiple universes for various endings. And since I am unlimited, why wouldn’t I do this? Making myself into this, uncountable versions and characters?

So the rules of the game:

Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.

With the measure you give/judge, you’ll be given/judged the same measure (you reap what you sow).

So where does love fit into all this?
And compassion?

Games are about entertainment and achievement. How does love and compassion fit into that?

My favorite part of finding this is that I no longer identify with this perspective. The Questioner has been found as an apparition; the Answer was always there.

My name being unique always made things complicated for me when I was a little girl. People struggled when remembering how to say it, they struggled with saying it at all, and I just wanted to be normal, like the other little girls in class who had names like “Tina” and “Leah” and then there was “Summer Rose”.

One day I came home informing everyone that I will be referred to as “Summer Rose” from now on, and I will not answer to anything but.

I must have been like five at the time, because I remember going to my great-grandmother’s funeral and sitting in the hard pews, looking around, dazed and confused as to why Grandmother would ever leave us. (Apparently when Nanny, my paternal grandmother–Grandmother’s daughter-in-law, tried explaining the circumstances around Grandmother’s death to me, I didn’t take it very well. Grandmother had been very sick so logically Nanny explained that Grandmother wanted to go. “She wanted to leave us!?” my little heart broke.)

With the opportunity of seeing so many members of my family, I made sure to reintroduce myself, but this time as Summer Rose, emphatically suggesting that I will not even so much as turn my head if another name was used.

Imagine my surprise as I am drinking coffee in the backyard this morning, incidental to my children’s games of pretend–

“My name’s Summer Breeze!!!” Rori said as she ran toward me. “I will be called Summer Breeze forever.”

That my coffee didn’t burst through my nose at the news can be attributed to the practice I’ve had “going with the flow”. I will take it as confirmation that I am slowly mastering my reactions to the suddenty of life, no matter how hilarious or absurd (in this case, hilarious).

“Summer Breeze?” my eyebrows raised while trying to maintain the most affirming facial expression a mother can hold.

“Yes!” she ascertained.

For a moment we stood mirroring each other: she, an embodied facet of Life’s newness, and I, the worn counterpart.

Her answer seemed sufficient– punctuated with her sparkling eyes, and brilliant smile–simple, yet underscoring the name’s incumbence in its own right. After all, what more was there to explain?

I wish I could show you my internal world. Really. I wish I had the days to tell you everything that has caused me to mourn. And that’s the thing — in the morning, I know I’m mourning. By the night, I am stretched thin and worn ragged. I wrote a lot in my journal yesterday, and it really began helping me. I felt it start peeling back the layers.

My reactions to him are wrong; they are all emotional outbursts. They’re not based on the truths that I know; they’re based on the fear from the boat, the sea-sickness of the storm, after having fought it all day. I know that when the winds die down, but as soon as I see the dark clouds and hear the thunder, I don’t remember the stillness, I only remember the fear the storm incited. And I know that–but only because the boat is still. For this little bit that it’s still.

The problem is, I keep fighting the storm, when you can’t fight storms. Storms just are; they aren’t personal, they aren’t malicious even. They’re just reactions to isolated incidents that collide. All of these isolated incidents colliding aren’t necessarily the fault of the passengers on the boat, yet I still find myself blaming him for enticing me out into a water that is known for dangerous weather patterns.

It’s not his fault, really. I suppose that, as I think about this character I’m attributed to (the “particular-ness” that I was destined to be of), I was made for this…

These are just thoughts, and haven’t been fully mapped out, but I’m wondering if this is my role so that “God” can express “his” greatness through me. Another means to orchestrate “his” greatness. I wish I could describe what I’m envisioning as I say this.

You are an aperture through which the universe is looking at and exploring itself. – Alan W. Watts

Diversion is how I go unnoticed for so long. I am so good at it that I don’t even know I’m doing it until my very own survival is debatable itself. The flickering of my neglected inner self glitches so severely that it is no longer ignorable, but becomes so much of a nuisance that engaging it is no longer optional but necessary lest it lose functionality at all.

Usually by this time the neglect is so straightforward and blatant that gutting it and starting over is the most reasonable form of action, even if throwing it all away always seems more tempting.

More often than not I get mad at myself: How did this happen again? Why do I keep forgetting basic survival prerequisites? What is it that is so important, so powerful, and so effectively distracting that keeps me from caring about myself? And why is it so successful every time? What is instilled inside of me — what core belief — fosters this ability to completely cloak my inner self to the point of invisibility to my own detriment?

Whatever lie I am clinging to is very well-fed and well-hidden; I will get to the bottom of it. And when I do, I will completely extinguish it, and it will never try to choke me out — ever again.

I am ready for the growth, and also for the nurturing. I need the nurturing and I look forward to it. Yoga is one of those things that has only increased my capacity to love myself. It has helped me find value in myself; it has helped me care for myself; and it has helped me love others. I hope one day it will absorb the majority of the parts I’ve hidden from myself so that I will be brand new: in a butterfly type fashion. Transformed, really.